Week 3 post

In chapter 6 of Thank You for Arguing, Heinrichs talks about using the tactical flaws technique when trying to persuade. I think that in Eating Animals, Saffran Foer uses this technique effectively with his inconsistent dedication to vegetarianism. He shows his audience that even though he is against eating animals, he still slips up every now and again and eats meat. This shows that he is human and that he is not perfect. By telling his audience this he gains his ethos and trust of the audience because he is honest and relatable. Along with ethos, Saffran Foer also uses a great deal of pathos, especially in the second chapter. He is able to soften the audience up when he compares dogs to fish and when he talks about the anthropomorphism of seahorses. He does this by telling the audience that seahorses also have “long-term monogamous partnerships” and also incorporates some interesting facts that most people don’t know (39). When I read this section I was taken back and put into deeper thought. I started to question the kind of harm that we, humans, cause in order to get meat, when sometimes it’s not even necessary. He uses the same technique when he compares fish and dogs. Just because humans have a personal connection with dogs and not with fish, it doesn’t mean that the fish are not worthy of life. He then goes on to explain the process of how we catch and kill fish, which is not a pleasant thing to think about. Because of this Saffran Foer is able to dig deeper into the audience’s emotions.